Boseman's Brown dazzles in 'Get On Up'

James Brown's life was fascinating and mercurial, a natural fit for a movie except for one seemingly insurmountable obstacle: James Brown.

How would a filmmaker ever replicate Brown's brilliance onstage?

Hire Chadwick Boseman, evidently.

"Get On Up," Tate Taylor's biographical film (the film is touted as being "from the director of 'The Help,'" which is damning with faint praise if ever anything was), has some problems in the storytelling department, but Boseman tackles with gusto the unenviable task of capturing Brown. Nelsan Ellis is even better as Bobby Byrd, who went from getting Brown out of prison to working for him. Describing this as "difficult" understates the case considerably.

Brown grew up in abject poverty, with parents (Lennie James and Viola Davis) who ignored him during the best of times; at worst they were horribly abusive. The young James went to live with Aunt Honey (Octavia Spencer) for a more tolerable existence, if not exactly upper-middle class.

Visits to church, with a particularly theatrical minister, would prove influential, but Brown couldn't stay out of trouble. He wound up in a juvenile-detention center, where Byrd's gospel group performed. Once Byrd heard Brown sing -- and found out how unfair his sentence for stealing a suit was -- he got him out, and Brown joined the band.

But they wouldn't sing gospel for long.

Brown was a genius of rhythm; there is a great, if uncomfortable, scene in which he quizzes all of his musicians, asking him what instrument they are playing. Guitar? "Drums!" Saxophone? "Drums!" Everything circles back to the rhythm.

Taylor bookends the story with the infamous 1988 incident in which Brown fled police in a high-speed chase. As is often the case with biopics, Taylor eschews chronological order, jumping back and forth in time. Typically this assists the storytelling, but here it mutes it. Brown plugs along, seemingly having the Midas touch with his career and business decisions, and out of the blue he is an abusive husband.

Well, maybe not fully out of the blue; we certainly see enough of his childhood to understand where some of the anger comes from. But we don't see any buildup when he is an adult. It's out of the blue, which is also the case with other developments.

For instance, where do the songs come from? He wrote them, onstage he lived and breathed them. We see bits and pieces of the creative process, but precious little. Evidently, like Mozart's compositions in "Amadeus," they just sprang forth fully formed.

Doubtful. They didn't call Brown (and he didn't call himself) the Hardest Working Man in Show Business for nothing.

Taylor breaks the film into chapters, each with its own Brown nickname: Godfather of Soul, Mr. Dynamite, Soul Brother No.1, etc. Brown evolved into something of a spokesman for civil rights, most famously preventing riots in Boston after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., but here the most striking change in the man is his hairstyle.

This is more a problem with the direction than the performances. Boseman nails Brown's idiosyncratic style of speaking, and, although no one is Brown, he has some pretty swell dance moves.

But it's left to Ellis, as Byrd, to get at the real changes in Brown. We see Brown's growing ego and control -- he often fined band members during shows -- reflected in Byrd's face. He saved Brown, but he realized it was to serve a greater good. He recognized Brown's genius and was willing to submit himself to it (up to a point).

Brown is, of course, hugely influential, something Taylor relates in a note at the end of the film. But the best example of this occurs elsewhere. The film re-creates Brown's famous performance on "The T.A.M.I. Show," where, incensed that the Rolling Stones would close the event, he tore the place up, as Mick Jagger and the rest of the Stones watched, thrilled, before taking the stage.

Then, as the end credits for "Get On Up" rolled, there is this: Producer: Mick Jagger.

Tate Taylor's biopic of the Godfather of Soul is as entertaining as the man himself. Chadwick Boseman tackles with gusto the unenviable task of capturing Brown, and Nelsan Ellis is even better as Bobby Byrd. But the story doesn't come together like it should. Universal Pictures, 138 minutes.

Online: http://www.getonupmovie.com"

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Bill Goodykoontz of The Arizona Republic is the chief film critic for Gannett. Read his blog at goodyblog.azcentral.com. For movie stories, trailers and more go to movies.azcentral.com. Twitter: goodyk.